Today, immediately after field transplanting of a crop such as tobacco, it is common practice for the farmer, in another separate field operation, to add fertilizer or nitrate of soda to the just planted crop. This, of course, requires two separate field operations with the farm tractor and each requires a significant amount of labor not to mention the expenses involved that are associated with the cost of operating the tractor and the associated equipment during each field operation.
Fertilizer distributor attachments that operate to distribute fertilizer, soda or other plant growth material have in the past been provided with certain agricultural implements and have been adapted to operate in conjunction therewith. However, many such fertilizer distributor attachments have generally been relatively expensive, complex, heavy and bulky, and expensive and difficult to maintain. In addition, conventional fertilizer distributors of the type herein referred to generally include agitating means within the distributor hopper and some type of distributing control, both of which are generally driven. To accomplish this driving operation, the fertilizer distributor attachments in the past have employed various types of drive means, but perhaps the most common is the chain drive. Often when used in conjunction with a fertilizer distributor and an associated implement, such chain drives have been found in some cases to be unreliable and prone to break, run off sprockets, or malfunction in other ways that result in breakdowns and the necessity to repair the chain drive.
Also it is not always easy and convenient to locate an effective and efficient point on the associated implement or tractor from which to drive the fertilizer distributor at the desired speed. It is not uncommon for a typical chain drive assembly to include multiple chain link segments that may appear to form a maze of sprockets and jack shafts. Such complexity in order to provide a drive train that will yield a certain output speed for driving the fertilizer distributor often compounds the maintenance problems with such chain drive systems.